Deliveryman in vicious Boca murder had run-ins with the law before

Surveillance video of Jorge Lachazo, who admitted to stealing a cell phone from a Miami Springs convenience store in October 2017.

He’s been behind bars before.

The suspect in the violent and shocking murder of a Boca Raton woman was locked up after a brazen cellphone theft was captured on store video. And Jorge Luis Dupre Lachazo even looked straight up at the security camera.

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Lachazo, 21, of Hialeah, drew headlines when, police say, he savagely attacked a 75-year-old woman in her home Monday — hitting her on the head with a wooden mallet and setting her on fire with acetone.

Lachazo and a co-worker were delivering appliances Monday when they entered Evelyn “Evy” Udell’s home to bring in and install her new washer and dryer. Police haven’t said what triggered Lachazo in the vicious attack.

Udell, a mother of two and grandmother of six, suffered severe head trauma, bleeding in her brain and second- and third-degree burns. She was hospitalized until she died Tuesday.

Before the Boca encounter, Lachazo grabbed police’s attention for the theft in Miami Springs nearly two years ago. Lachazo stole a Samsung 8 cellphone that a customer had forgotten at Downstairs, a convenience store less than a mile from where he lived at the time, records show.

Lachazo found the phone on a counter, covered it with a blank lottery ticket and looked around to see if anyone saw him. He waited briefly near the counter and picked up both the ticket and phone, then left the store.

The act was all caught on surveillance video — with Lachazo at one point looking straight at the camera.

Miami Springs Detective Ray Tamargo watched the video and saved a surveillance image of Lachazo, describing him in a police report as “pretty recognizable.” The then-19-year-old, with a blue cast on his left arm, was 6-foot-1 and weighed 140 pounds.

Three months later, while on patrol and by happenstance, Tamargo spotted Lachazo out and about.

Frame grabs from surveillance video of Jorge Lachazo, who admitted to stealing a phone from a Miami Springs convenience store in October 2017. He was charged with theft, but the case was dismissed after he successfully completed a pretrial diversion program. (Miami Dade State Attorney's Office / Courtesy)

“I recognized him on the street,” Tamargo told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Thursday. He remembers Lachazo as a “young kid” who “didn’t talk much.”

Lachazo admitted stealing the phone, but told Tamargo he no longer had it when the detective detained him in January 2018. Tamargo read the Cuban-born Lachazo his rights in Spanish, then arrested him and took him to Miami’s Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.

Lachazo had no prior arrests before the cellphone theft, so he was eligible to have his criminal charge dismissed through his participation in pretrial diversion. That’s a program that lets first-time offenders resolve their cases by agreeing to be under court supervision and paying fines, among other alternatives.

Social media posts from Lachazo and his family paint a portrait of a young man who has lived in Miami-Dade County at least in recent years, and who still kept in touch online with his friends and family back in his native Cuba. He’s seen in photos posing for the camera while sitting in a car or standing next to a boat, as well as smiling with his mom and relatives.

A recent selfie Lachazo posted on his Facebook page showed him and two co-workers sitting in the cab of a home-delivery truck, all of them wearing uniform blue polo shirts. Lachazo, who sported yellow safety goggles and a black baseball cap with the word “Lit,” also flashed a thumbs-up for the picture.

Lachazo’s other troubles in South Florida involve a string of traffic tickets. He was cited for speeding at 49 mph in a 30 mph zone in 2017 in Miami-Dade, and later that year he was accused of running a stop sign. Adjudication was withheld in both those cases, meaning no conviction resulted. He was found guilty last winter for speeding 80 mph in a 55 mph zone in Monroe County.

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Other charges included failing to pay traffic fines, and failing to appear in court on a summons. Records show he had a suspended license.

In the Boca murder case, Lachazo is being represented by the Palm Beach Public Defender’s Office, and a spokeswoman couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday on her cellphone.

Evelyn “Evy” Udell (center, top row) was murdered in her Boca Raton home after being attacked and set on fire by a delivery man. (Harran Udell / Courtesy)

On Monday, Lachazo went to Udell’s home through his work for a subcontractor company that provided home delivery. Udell had ordered the appliances from Best Buy, which contracted the work out to J.B. Hunt, an Arkansas firm, which in turn contracted the work out to X.M. Delivery Service, a Miami delivery company.

Both Best Buy and J.B. Hunt said they have severed their relationships with X.M. Delivery.

The owner of X.M. Delivery, Manuel D. Chavez, couldn’t be reached for comment despite a visit to his home and phone calls. In a police interview, Lachazo estimated he had worked as a home-delivery helper for about a year and eight months.

It was unclear Thursday whether Lachazo began his job before or after his arrest in Miami Springs — and what, if any, background checks he underwent to get his job.

Udell is being fondly remembered as a retired mom and grandma who loved traveling, her cats and reading.

According to her obituary published Thursday, Udell was a Harrisburg, Penn., native. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Pennsylvania State University in 1964 and later earned her master’s degree from Drexel University. While at Penn State, she met her husband, Joel Udell, and they married in 1964.

She worked as a librarian at LaSalle University and Gwynedd Mercy College in Philadelphia before moving to Boca Raton in 2002 to be closer to her children and grandchildren. She worked in the library at Florida Atlantic University until 2018.

“Evelyn was a true friend to everyone and loved by all," her obituary read.

Harran Udell, Evy Udell’s son, issued a statement to the news media this week, in which the family thanked police and the hospital for all they did. “We are not ready to speak about this tragedy," Udell said.

"We wish to thank the Boca police department for their prompt and professional apprehension of the suspect. And we thank the Delray Medical Center for the excellent care they provided to our mother.”